24 June 2026: Telehealth over WhatsApp: Introducing Video Calling

Ricardo Updated by Ricardo

Today marks a new chapter in Turn.io's history.

WhatsApp is already where patient conversations happen — appointment reminders, triage, follow-ups. But when a conversation needs a face-to-face moment, patients had to switch to a different platform, if there even was one. That break in the experience adds friction for both clinicians and patients, especially in regions where WhatsApp is the default communication tool.

Now you can keep the entire interaction in one place. Video Calling is here on Turn.io — and while it works for any use case, it's built with telehealth in mind.

Clinicians can start a video call directly from a WhatsApp conversation, take notes during the call, and access full transcripts afterward — the same features available on regular voice calls. And soon, AI-generated call summaries will be available too, so clinicians can focus on the patient instead of documentation.

This opens up real use cases: a nurse completing a visual assessment after a triage journey, a doctor doing a follow-up consultation without asking the patient to travel, or a community health worker connecting a patient to a specialist remotely — all without leaving WhatsApp.

A note on availability: Video calling is currently a WhatsApp beta feature still in active development, so the occasional bug is expected. Pricing is free for the duration of the beta — we'll share more on costs as the feature matures.

How to setup

Simply head to Settings > Calls and, after enabling calls, Enable video calls. That's it. Really!

Now, if you want to let your users call you anytime from WhatsApp, enable the Show call buttons option. This will show the call buttons on WhatsApp:

Note: if you don't have a helpdesk team ready waiting for these calls, we suggest you keep this setting off to avoid disappointing your users with missed calls.

You can read about how to call your users, prompt your users to call you and more in the main Calling article.

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